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Police: Allegedly drunk driver caused Lowell outage

Officer Rob Rayne takes Kevin Cote of Billerica into custody. Cote is charged with drunken driving after he allegedly crashed into a utility pole, causing a power outage.
(SUN/ROBERT MILLS )

LOWELL -- A 45-year-old Billerica man is facing a drunken-driving charge as police say he was drunk when he drove his car into a utility pole on North Billerica Road late Saturday night, causing a power outage that affected much of the South Lowell neighborhood.

Officers were called to North Billerica Road, just prior to the Tewksbury town line, about 11:30 p.m., for a report that a vehicle struck a utility pole.

Officers arrived to find a car crashed into a snowbank and the utility pole, with the heavy-laden utility pole snapped and leaning out over the the vehicle and the road.

The driver, identified by police as Kevin Cote, 45, of Billerica, was not hurt. Cote was arrested and charged with operating under the influence of alcohol after taking a field sobriety test, according to police.

The resulting power outage left much of South Lowell in the dark from the railroad bridge over Lawrence Street to the Tewksbury town line. National Grid reported on its website that all but 150 customers had power restored by 1:30 a.m., but the remaining customers were not restored until even earlier in the morning.

North Billerica Road was closed at Boylston Street while workers from National Grid cleaned up the wreckage and repaired the utility pole.

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